“If the Democrats win the presidency in both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico, D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme court to 13. F*ck it, eat our dust.”
That was Democratic strategist James Carville on the Politicon podcast on April 16, proposing that the next time Democrats have the trifecta of the White House, House and Senate, perhaps in 2029 or 2033, they should just do everything to expand their political power by making new blue states out of Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. and packing the Supreme Court.
But just don’t tell anyone that’s what you’re going to do: “[T]he only way to fight this is don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it. Just okay. We got 54 senators and we got 13 court members. Thank you. Goodbye.”
In short, Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign chief strategist in 1992, thinks that Democrats should campaign as moderates, but act radically when in power in order consolidate Democratic one-party rule.
Now, Democrats eventually getting the trifecta seems very likely. Since Franklin Roosevelt, every time Democrats win the White House, they have had the trifecta: FDR had it in 1933-1946, Truman had it from 1949-1952, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had it from 1961-1968, Jimmy Carter had it from 1977-1980, Bill Clinton had it from 1993-1994, Barack Obama had it from 2009-2010 and Joe Biden from 2021-2022.
Under Roosevelt, Johnson, Carter and Obama, they even had filibuster-proof majorities in the Senate — and used it to pass sweeping entitlement, immigration and health care legislation.
What is less likely is using that position to completely consolidate political power by packing the House, Senate, Electoral College and the Supreme Court, the latter of which would require amending the Judiciary Act of 1869 — and all of which would almost certainly require abolishing the Senate filibuster to pass.
In 2022, Senate Democrats tried to abolish the filibuster to pass their H.R.5746 election takeover bill — and presumably do the same thing to add new states in D.C. and Puerto Rico, and pack the Supreme Court — but failed as former Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin broke with Democrats and voted no.
Republicans for their part have had some ambitions to try something similar, with President Donald Trump urging Senate Republicans to abolish the Senate filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require U.S. citizenship to register to vote, voter identification to vote, restrictions on mail-in balloting and ending sanctuary states and cities.
Very similarly, however, Republicans appear to lack the votes to either abolish the filibuster or else to keep the legislative day going to force Democrats into a talking filibuster — and so too have their ambitions been curbed by the process.
Republicans may not be as ambitious as Democrats. Although President Trump has stated he would make Canada, Greenland or even Venezuela states, so far there is only a bill to annex Greenland, with just 1 cosponsor. Republicans have no plans to add Supreme Court justices.
In fact, Republicans have never had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate after more than a century of Senate cloture rules.
But, says Carville, Democrats are justified in his proposed power grab, accusing Republicans of “stealing” the 2000 presidential election and thus the John Roberts and Samuel Alito Senate seats: “They’ve done everything they could. They held up [2]000 election. They stole it. They’ve stolen Supreme court seats.”
And he pointed to the redistricting in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and Missouri as another rationale: “They’ve gerrymandered everything that you can.” It’s worth noting Democrats are already responding to the redistricting with proposals in California and Virginia for their own gerrymandering. It might all be a wash in Congress when all is said and done.
From both parties, then, we see pushes for more partisan control and away from Congress governing on a bipartisan basis — an erosion of the political norms that Democrats were comfortable with when it garnered them legislative supermajorities, and which Republicans now worry will be irretrievably altered making them a permanent minority party.
In that context, Republicans appear to be the weaker party to the Democrats, and so the struggle might ultimately comes down to who’s willing to consolidate power — and is able to keep it.
And here Carville is saying, you’re damn right, they’re pushing for Democratic one-party rule. So, without any countervailing forces — including an electorate that appears indifferent to the periodic power shift between parties — it might just be a matter of time before that’s exactly what happens when Democrats are in power again.
It ignores the fact that there have been periods of party rule, Federalists, Democrats, Republicans time and again and ultimately, the American people always whittle those majorities down. Nothing lasts forever. But Carville seems to be betting that could be a while.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
